


Long Due Conversation

by BuruRaven



Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Blood, Canon Compliant Up To Chapter 70, Collapsing And Collapsed Building, Gen, Happy Ending, I Just Wanted To Create An Extreme Situation To Force Them To Talk To Each Other, No Slash, Objects Going Through People, Small And Dark Space, Unconsciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 12:59:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4836299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BuruRaven/pseuds/BuruRaven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“And, each time, every single one of them, I could do nothing. I just stood there. I didn’t even try to stop them. I just passively observed while they took you away and locked you away… while they made decisions about you, like you were simply an object to be handled at their will…”</i>
  <br/>
  <i>“Y-yukio…” Rin whispered, guilt weighing on him uncomfortably.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>“I don’t hold either authority or power enough for my opinion to matter.” A pause. “And truth is, even if I did, I am not sure that I would decide differently. Regardless of the human-you that I grew up with, the first friend I ever made, my only family… you are a demon. You can be dangerous and you must be handled carefully.”</i>
</p><p>I wrote this fic because of <a href="http://bururaven.tumblr.com/post/127186760304/i-just-want-rin-and-yukio-to-sit-down-and-talk">this post</a>. This was my first AnE fanfic and it was originally posted on my tumblr on September 2nd, 2015, <a href="http://bururaven.tumblr.com/post/128143207604/long-due-conversation">here</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don’t own Ao no Exorcist/Blue Exorcist. Ao no Exorcist/Blue Exorcist is the property of Kazue Katō, and is not my intellectual property. There is no financial gain made from this, nor will any be sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.

Suddenly, the whole building shivered without the demon’s support. A thunderous sound of bending metal and crumbling concrete warned the two teens of what was about to happen.

“Retreat! Now!” Yukio commanded from behind him. Rin gave Kurikara a desperate pull, trying to dislodge it from where it got stuck after going through the huge amorphous demon who had previously been supporting the old abandoned shopping centre. Said demon was now a half-burned purplish goo rapidly vanishing at Rin’s feet and therefore…

“It’ll collapse on us!” Yukio’s tone had now a tinge of urgency to it.

“I know!! But-” Kurikara had gotten half-buried into the concrete floor. Rin might have used a bit too much strength to attack that soft-fleshed demon…

“Come on!!” Yukio sounded closer. He was coming back to help Rin dislodge the sword. Right when Kurikara finally popped out of its concrete prison, an ear-splitting metal and rock roar came from directly above Rin’s head.  

“STOP!” Rin bellowed, turning towards Yukio. But he never got to face him, because halfway through his rotating motion, he was hit in the abdomen with something that violently but effectively glued him to the hard floor, the back of his head brutally colliding with rock. Suddenly, Rin could only feel pain, shiver at the cold touch of darkness and hear the terrible sound of the building falling over them.

“NII-SAN!!”

In a final barely conscious attempt to protect Yukio, Rin desperately threw his blue flames against the fast-approaching debris. He couldn’t see anything but, in his head, he pictured a protective flaming blue cocoon that would stop them from being crushed.

And then, nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

*drip*

*drip-drip*

Water?

*drip-drip*

No, it sounded more like little sand grains tumbling onto rock in a cavernous place.

*drip-drip-drip*

Rin felt his own eyeballs turning inside their sockets underneath his closed eyelids in the direction of the offending sound. He took a short breath and heard a half-shuffling, half-dragging sound to his left. Then, a weight on his left shoulder. Rin took a bigger breath in and immediately regretted doing so, as intense pain permeated his abdomen. He coughed wetly; his mouth tasted like blood. The half-demon whimpered softly.

“Nii-san?”

The hand on his shoulder squeezed slightly. Rin tried to open his eyes while fighting against the waves of intense pain coming both from his head and, most importantly, from his abdomen. He succeeded and immediately frowned. The outside of his eyelids wasn’t so different from the inside of them…

“It’s… dark…” Rin rasped weakly. He both heard and felt Yukio’s half-relieved, half-exasperated sigh against his cheek. Then a dull thud, as Yukio apparently dropped his head on the ground by his side. His hand didn’t move from Rin’s shoulder, though.

After a few minutes of silence, during which Rin slowly recovered consciousness and had his vision adapt to the blueish near-darkness that surrounded them, he turned his face towards Yukio. The exorcist was laying on his right side and observing Rin silently with a blank expression. The left lens was missing from his slightly bent glasses and there was half-dried blood on the left side of his face.

“Are you okay?” Rin asked, suddenly urgent.

Yukio’s eyes grew big. He looked shocked by the question.

“Are you really asking me if  _I_  am okay, Nii-san??” As he said this, Yukio’s eyes drifted in the direction of Rin’s abdomen and back, increasingly bigger and more shocked.

Rin followed his brother’s glance and that was when the intense pain in his abdomen made sense. A heavy-looking metal beam was coming out of his belly. Rin let out a not-so-manly screech and flayed his arms about, freaking out.

“Take it out!!” He urged with a tone bending on hysterics and went to grab the beam with his hands, to try and dislodge the frightening thing from inside him.

“No, Nii-san!”

The beam seemed to have driven itself through the floor under Rin’s back and consequently barely moved. Yet, the sound of the ground moving above them, added to the urgency in Yukio’s tone, made Rin immediately stop his attempts at moving the thing. Dust and dirt fell in little drizzles around them menacingly.

*driiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip-drip-drip*

*drip*

Rin dry-gulped.

Yukio was staring at him reproachfully, but said nothing. Rin made his best apologizing expression.

“So…”

“That beam is the only thing keeping us from being crushed.” Yukio painstakingly explained, pointing upwards into the  _ceiling_ of their metal and concrete prison. The debris had created a sort of a domed cave, just tall enough, Rin reckoned, for Yukio to sit up. And, on the floor, right in the centre of that dome, was Rin, lying on his back, abdomen impaled by the beam that was supporting said precarious underground infrastructure.

Rin tried to reign in on his growing panic. He took two painful breaths.

“I think your flames made it look like this. It felt like you were pushing against the concrete with them. When did you learn how to do that?”

“I didn’t. I don’t know how I did that. I didn’t even know that I had done that… I just…” Rin hesitated. “I just  _wished_   _very hard_  that they could hold the ceiling away from us and… and… they… did?”

Yukio was silent for a few seconds, then he sighed and let go of Rin’s shoulder to roll onto his back. His bloodied right hand wiped at the sweat and blood on his brow.

“Are you okay?” Rin asked again.

Yukio chuckled dryly and didn’t answer. Rin tried to take a look at his little brother’s body by twisting his head on the ground and peeking between their prone forms lying side by side. Where was that blood coming from? He immediately saw the little pool of blood that had gathered around his own torso and abdomen and the slow tendrils or bluish-grey smoke coming from the injury, but wisely decided to ignore that. Then, he saw the darkening of the cloth of the right leg of Yukio’s trousers, starting at the knee level and extending down, probably to the foot. Rin reached for Yukio’s knee. As he suspected, the cloth was drenched in blood. Yukio took a sharp intake of breath and pushed Rin’s hand away.

“Yukio…”

“A rock grazed my leg right before Satan’s flames pushed the debris away. And another one hit the side of my head. And broke my glasses.” He concluded, like that last sentence had personally offended him.

“Yu-”

“Stop it!” A humourless little laugh. “I’m not the one with a metal beam poking out of my belly.”

“No, but…” Rin interrupted himself, with a sudden realization. “Hey, wait. How come we can see anything? There is no light…!”

Yukio stared at him with a blank expression, like he was waiting for Rin to realize it on his own eventually.

“What?”

Yukio only kept on staring, a half-exasperated, half-mocking expression beginning to show now. He stared pointedly at the top of Rin’s head, then at his left ear. Rin just looked at him expectantly. Yukio let out an exasperated sigh.

“Your flames, Nii-san.”

Only then did Rin make sense of the blueish hue that tinted everything in the cave.

“Oh! That’s right.” He enthusiastically replied. Then promptly passed out.


	3. Chapter 3

For a moment, the darkness seemed to pulse against Rin in tandem to his waning headache. Eventually, all the uncomfortableness was replaced with the feel of soft, warm linen against his face. A tiny voice started whispering in the dark.

_“Nii-san…” Someone was shaking him insistently. “Nii-san, please wake up…”_

_Rin rolled on himself and poked his head out of his Spiderman-stamped covers._

_“Wha…?”_

_“Let me in, please, Nii-san…” It was dark in their little shared room, but Rin could see the tears on Yukio’s face. He scooted over so that his little brother could climb onto his bed. They weren’t so little now, actually. It had been their_ _five year birthday just a couple of weeks ago. And they would be changing rooms next week, to a room with bunk beds, how cool was that? Yes, they were “little men” now. But little men had nightmares too, sometimes, Rin thought._

_“Was it a nightmare?” He asked to the little bundle hidden under the covers beside him._

_“No…” Came the muffled reply._

_Outside, the wind was throwing rain against their window. Suddenly, there was a flash of light, and then, a mighty thunder roared. Yukio shivered beside him._

_“Was it the lighti-tin?” Rin asked, putting a tiny hand over Yukio’s hidden head._

_“Lightening.” Yukio sagely corrected from under his nest. “No.”_

_Rin sighed impatiently._

_“Tell-…”_

_Yukio’s head suddenly popped out from under the covers. The tears were gone._

_“Look.” He said, pointing at his own bed on the other side of their little room. His tiny hand shook a bit and he speedily hid it back under the covers._

_Rin looked. It was a bed much like his own, except Yukio’s covers were Batman-themed, unlike Rin’s ones. He blinked and looked confusedly at Yukio._

_Yukio shivered and hid his head under the covers again._

_“The little ones are always there. Around other places too. I… I think they are okay.” Came Yukio’s muffled explanation. “But… when the sky goes loud… sometimes… they look… not okay. And then… sometimes, those bigger ones show up too.” Yukio was shaking under the covers, maybe he was crying again. “They don’t… they don’t look okay.” Yes, he was crying._

_Rin kept staring at the empty bed on the other side of the room. What was Yukio talking about?_

_“Er… what… what little ones?” He asked timidly._

_Yukio’s head popped out from under the covers, a disapproving expression on his tear-streaked face._

_“The little monsters!” Yukio said, like it was obvious. “The black, round ones with the little tails.”_

_Rin squinted at the bed. It was dark, but still he couldn’t see anything… maybe they were hidden under the bed, the little bastards! A determined expression filled his cute childish features. He was going to protect Yukio from them, it was his duty as the big brother!_

_“Yukio, change places.” He said, with a big brother’s assertive voice. Yukio’s face lightened up with relief and he did as he was told, scooting over against the wall, while Rin passed over him to lay on the side of the bed that was closer to the space between their beds._

_“I won’t let those things get to you!” Rin said determined, facing away from Yukio and staring fixedly at the offending piece of furniture on the other side of the little room._

_A couple of tiny arms embraced him from behind._

_“Thank you, Nii-san.” Came the grateful reply._

_The next morning, the first thing Rin did when he woke up was jump out of his own bed and go take a peek under Yukio’s bed. There were no monsters there._

_He straightened up proudly to look at Yukio, a big grin on his round little face._

_“_ _No monsters, see?”_

_Yukio just sat there. He looked at Rin’s face, then looked right behind his big brother, then back at Rin, an odd expression on his mole-sprinkled face. He raised to his feet and grabbed at Rin’s hand._

_“Let’s go eat breakfast.” He said, then pulled at Rin, shutting the door behind the both of them the moment they were outside._

Rin could remember it clearly now. The exact day when things started changing between them. It was a gradual change, and Rin had been too thick to even notice it at the time, but it was definitely real. And it became more and more real each day. Yukio had been hiding things from him for so long. Lying for so long. He did it so well.


	4. Chapter 4

After his belated realization about their underground prison’s lighting source, Rin went quiet and limp, his head lolling to his left. The blue flames dimmed but weren’t completely extinguished. Kurikara was somewhere under the debris, unsheathed.

“Nii-san!” Yukio extended a hand to Rin’s neck pulse point, like he had done countless times before Rin retained consciousness. A steady pulse greeted the pads of his fingertips and Yukio let out a quiet sigh of relief.

He carefully sat up to take another look at Rin’s abdomen. His head throbbed painfully at the movement. The bleeding of Rin’s wound seemed indeed to have stopped, but Yukio could not predict the kind of damage the beam had done to his brother’s internal organs. He gingerly touched the place where the skin and the beam connected. It was sticky from the blood and a little bit too warm to the touch. The smoke that marked Rin’s healing process was still persistently coming out from the wound. Rin’s body was trying to heal, but it couldn’t do it properly because of the strange object still inside it. Rin whimpered quietly in pain at Yukio’s touch and his tail spasmed on the ground beside him. Yukio didn’t like the look of this.

Once again, he took his destroyed phone out of his pocket and uselessly tried to turn it on. Rin didn’t have his on him, Yukio had checked. Yukio stared blankly at the broken screen for some seconds. With a sigh, he returned to his prone position by Rin’s side.

How were they supposed to get out of this place?

 

 _It was a Saturday afternoon. Yukio had just dropped by their dormitory to leave his school things, grab something to eat and head back out to the shady part of town to continue his “_ [ _experiment_ ](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/70/3) _”. He was standing by the kitchen table, eating a sandwich, when a purple note from Mephisto materialized on his piece of bread with a pink little cloud and an ominous “puff” sound._

_He half-chocked on his mouthful, coughing violently. Rin’s head pocked inside from the kitchen’s doorway._

_“You okay? Didn’t hear you come in…”_

_Yukio ignored him. The note was about a little cleaning mission, with a rather lower class demon in an abandoned shopping centre, in the middle of nowhere. Apparently, everyone else was either busy or on their day off and it was “…such a simple mission! Okumura-sensei could take care of it in minutes, right?_ _♥_ _”. Yukio sighed. It was true that they were a bit short-handed right now, but, if it was such a non-urgent matter, why was Mephisto even bothering him with it in the first place? Especially on a Saturday afternoon?_

_Yukio looked up from the note to stare right into a silly pleading face only a few centimetres away from his own. He calmly backed one step away from his annoying twin, making a point of ignoring him._

_“Pleeeease, Yukio! Let me go with you! I already finished homework!”_

_Yukio was surprised by that._

_“You did??!”_

_Rin faked an outraged expression._

_“Why such surprise? Of course I did!” His face quickly adjusted into the previous pleading expression. “Please, Yukio, take me with you, pleeease…!”_

_Rin actually seemed honest about the homework and Yukio thought this might be a chance to take Rin off his hair a bit. He had been prying too much lately, it was starting to annoy Yukio._

_“Okay.”_

_Rin was shocked for a second. He had clearly never believed Yukio would actually say yes. But he quickly covered up his shocked surprise with a gloriously happy grin._

_And that’s how, after a key that led them to a shack in the middle of the woods, they found themselves staring at the abandoned shopping centre. There was vegetation everywhere, in and around this and some other abandoned-looking big buildings, from the same long unused industrial park at the outskirts of a city which had grown in the contrary direction to this area._

_It didn’t take them long to figure out that the supposedly lower class demon was so big that Yukio’s bullets and holy water grenades - which would’ve allowed them to eliminate the demon from the safety of the outside of the building - would take an eternity to complete the job._

_And that was when Yukio did something reckless. He wanted to speed up the process and suggested for them to go inside and do a quick attack-and-escape number on the demon’s core. He didn’t expect that, the moment Kurikara trespassed the demon’s core, its entire body would burn and dissipate in a matter of seconds, sending the building crumbling over them._

Considering that the note had reached Yukio in such an officious manner and that the next day was a Sunday, chances of either of them being missed before Monday were not very good.

“No monsters, see?” Rin muttered softly in his sleep. A bead of sweat dripped slowly down his temple and into his dirt-dusted hair, in the direction of his demonically elongated ear. He shivered.

For a fraction of a second, Yukio thought he’d seen Rin’s flames intensify minutely and then retreat back to their default glow, like a pulse. His own head seemed to throb in tandem to it. Yukio rubbed at his eyes and then reached for his brother’s forehead.

“Damn.” Yukio whispered. Rin was burning up. This really didn’t look good. Yukio had never seen Rin ill before, he thought that was something that couldn’t happen, especially not now that his demon side had awakened. It was probably Rin’s enhanced healing abilities fighting against the strange object inside his body. Rin would be fine when they took that off him… Right?

The young exorcist dabbed at the sweat gathering on his own forehead with the back of his hand and tried to gather his bearings. And that’s when he noticed it. A slight, nearly imperceptible fresh breeze coming from his left.

“Of course!” He almost shouted, sitting up. Rin stirred beside him and whimpered.

That was why the air in their underground hole, if doubtless warm, wasn’t actually stifling! After all the hours they’d already spent inside there, the air ought to be much thicker and stuffy. There was a hole that led to the surface somewhere to his left, the only thing Yukio had to do was find it! He painfully dragged himself in the general direction of the breeze he had felt. His right leg really hurt and he felt a little light-headed. Maybe he had lost more blood that he thought, he vaguelyconsidered. While blindly analysing the precarious wall with searching fingertips, Yukio absent-mindedly wondered if he should have applied a tourniquet to his leg wound instead of the haphazardly wrapped bandages he’d tied in the near-darkness… Somehow, that didn’t bother him much. Maybe - he considered in the same detached way as before - he had a concussion.

It was too dark.

“Nii-san, wake up.”

Rin moaned painfully from behind him, but the lighting didn’t improve.

“Nii-san! Wake up!!” He repeated a bit louder.

“No…” Rin rasped. But the blue intensified just enough for Yukio to see the two-finger-wide crack from which the outside breeze was coming. No sunlight came through it. There was no way they would escape through that.

“Yukio? Where are you?” Rin’s words where coming slowly, dragging for too long on his tongue and he sounded slightly out of breath. Yukio took an apprehensive look back at him. Rin still had his eyelids firmly closed. Yukio rolled his eyes.

“Here, Nii-san.” Yukio replied, dejectedly staring at the little crack on their makeshift wall.

“What’s wrong?”

Yukio hesitated. It was true that they couldn’t escape through that tiny air way, but maybe Yukio could send some sort of message or sign out, which would, at the very least, be seen on the surface and hopefully mark their general underground location, maybe even call for help? He tried to force his slowed-down self to think of something.

“…Yukio?”

“Nothing is wrong. I’m thinking about a way of getting us out of here.”

“Eh…?”

Yukio turned towards his light source so he could search for one of the [magic Naiad bullets](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/29/20) in his belt satchel. Luckily, he always carried some of those around. He loaded his gun. Rin gingerly raised his head from the ground to apprehensively look at his brother’s face.

“Y-yukio-…? Wha-…?”

Yukio turned his back to him and took a deep breath, preparing his aim…

“No! Stop!”

Yukio froze. His eyes grew big. Rin was right.

How stupid of him. He really must have a concussion. He could not shoot the wall; it would most definitely collapse on them. And he certainly couldn’t shoot the concrete floor, as the bullet would most definitely ricochet on it and, most likely, lodge inside one of them! Yukio let his forehead thump softly against the wall. His injured left temple throbbed in protest.

“I’m sorry, Nii-san…” He whispered.

“Just what… were you trying to do?”

“I was going to call a Naiad to mark our location outside in case someone comes to our rescue.”

There was an awkward silence during which Yukio was sure Rin didn’t have the slightest idea of what he was talking about.

“Why can’t you just draw the circle, like Shiemi and Izumo do?”

Yukio blinked. He really was concussed. After this, he should go lie down, he decided.

In the end, Yukio managed to conjure Drosera, one of the eight Naiads, convince it to follow the hole to the outside and wait by it. In his current state, Yukio could not support the magic needed for Drosera to travel back to True Cross Campus Town. He was far too weak indeed, too unprotected; he had to master his powers and become stronger. And he had to do it fast. The young exorcist shook his head to clear it of these thoughts and immediately regretted doing so, as it painfully throbbed in protest.

With a sigh, Yukio dragged himself back to the middle of their debris prison and laid down by Rin’s side.

“You are not alright.” Rin stated, matter-of-factly. “And I’m not talking about today’s injuries.”


	5. Chapter 5

“I really am okay, Nii-san. I’ve just been tired, that’s all.” That had become Yukio’s trademark reply. He’d repeated it so often in the last few weeks that he was almost starting to believe it himself.

Rin didn’t look convinced in the least. [Shura really was right](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/68/7).

“I just remembered something from when we were little. Remember when we used to sleep in that tiny room with the two little child-sized beds?”

“Yes, they changed us to [the one with the bunk beds and the desks](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/28/23) when we were about five, I think.” Yukio said, thoughtfully.

“Yeah, I thought it was so cool at the time! But it was also closer to Father’s room…” Rin said dolefully, suddenly remembering all the times that he had been caught trying to sneak in and out while ditching classes.

“And away from everyone else.” Yukio supplied quietly.

“Oh.” Rin whispered, [as the meaning behind Yukio’s words sank](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/11/25). Then, after a pause, “[You told me that you always felt like I was a danger to everyone…](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/2/33) But… were you… afraid of me when they told you…? When did they tell you?”

Yukio sighed. It seemed like he couldn’t escape Rin’s questioning this time.

“It was actually [around the time we switched rooms](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/2/51) that Father first told me about exorcists. At the time I thought I was the odd one, not you.”

“Because I couldn’t see them.” Rin murmured, his eyes tracking a little Coal Tar floating aimlessly near the ceiling of their hole.

“Yeah. But Father only told me more about us later, a little after my exorcist training actually began, when I started realizing that your strength couldn’t be human.”

Suddenly, another memory surfaced in Rin’s mind. It wasn’t as detailed as the one he had dreamed about. But he could remember a strange feeling of awkwardness when, one day, when they were around seven years old, he went to hug Yukio after he returned from school. And Yukio all but flinched away from Rin, like he expected Rin to hurt him. It had been a fleeting moment and Rin could not make sense of it at the time, so he had forgotten about it almost completely.

“I never feared that you would intentionally hurt me but, after he told me, I became accustomed to the idea that it could happen by accident anytime.”

Yukio’s thought process was obviously sound. And yet, to Rin, thinking that little seven-year-old Yukio was always on high alert when Rin was around, always hiding something like that from him… it was painful to even imagine. It’s like Yukio had been under duress ever since. How cruel that was.

“I did dread the day of your awakening. I feared what you’d be like after that but, most of all, I feared what would happen to you after it. Father prepared me to the possibility of your elimination at the hands of the Order or at his own hands. Also, to the less catastrophic panorama of your imprisonment. For years, I steeled myself to the eventuality of losing you that day. And, when Father died, I wished that I had.”

Rin dry-gulped.

“[I remember](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/2/35). Do you still blame me for the old man’s death?”

“[How could I not?](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/2/38)” A pause. A sigh. Then, “When your powers awoke… did you attack father?”

“What? No! My awakening had nothing to do with Father! It had more to do with you, actually.”

“Me?!”

“Yeah. There were these stupid pigeon killers… their boss was being possessed by a demon and I could see it then, even though I didn’t know what it was… Anyways, [he badmouthed you](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/1/21) and I kind of lost it. But they overpowered me and then the flames just burst out… That was when Father showed up and exorcised the demon. I never attacked him.”

Yukio stared silently at his brother’s eyes for a few seconds.

“Then…” He hesitated, looked away from Rin’s face. “That day, Father told us that you had seen a Coal Tar. Therefore, your awakening could be happening anytime. He sent everyone away. I thought he was trying to protect us from your rampage, but… maybe…” If he wasn’t busy calming a rampaging demonic Rin down, why hadn’t Shirō called them back? He knew Satan would probably make an attempt at possessing him. Then, why hadn’t he called for reinforcements…?? Could it be…?

“He didn’t know if I would go rabid or not. Also, like you said, he probably thought he’d have to… er… eliminate… me.” Rin reasoned. “But… I wish there was someone there to help when Satan possessed him… I couldn’t do anything…” He added quietly.

Yukio was silent for a long time, staring fixedly at the ceiling, apparently deep in thought.

“So, ever since you learned the truth about us… you’ve been preparing yourself for my funeral, eh?” Rin said in a joking manner. He snickered a little at his own words.

“Yes, actually, that’s precisely how I feel like.” Yukio said quietly, as if he hadn’t realized he was actually speaking out loud. “When the Headmaster showed up at Father’s funeral, I was sure that would be the end of it for you. Then, that time with Negaiuz-senpai. Then, Shura-san. Then, Angel-sama. Then, the Order. And the Order still. Your execution directive has not been cancelled, only postponed, as I hope you still remember, Nii-san. And you keep putting yourself in dangerous situations. And you keep overusing your flames-…!”

“Hey, hold on a-…” Rin tried to interrupt, embarrassed by the truth in Yukio’s accusations.

“And, each time, every single one of them, I could do nothing. I just stood there. I didn’t even try to stop them. I just passively observed while they took you away and locked you away… while they made decisions about you, like you were simply an object to be handled at their will…”

“Y-yukio…” Rin whispered, guilt weighing on him uncomfortably.

“I don’t hold either authority or power enough for my opinion to matter.” A pause. “And truth is, even if I did, I am not sure that I would decide differently. Regardless of the human-you that I grew up with, the first friend I ever made, my only family… you _are_  a demon. You can be dangerous and you must be handled carefully.”

“Half-demon.” Rin corrected automatically. Then became suddenly outraged. “Wait…! You would lock me away too??”

Yukio sighed exasperatedly. Of course, of all the things he’d just said, Rin would focus on that detail alone.

“At least locked away you wouldn’t be getting yourself into trouble.”

“I don’t do it on purpose! And, also, this…” Rin waved his right hand about to include the whole cave. “… was not my fault!”

Yukio opened his mouth to reply, but Rin actually had a point.

“Surprisingly, this one time, that is true.” Yukio reluctantly conceded.

“ _Surprisingly_?  _This one time_??” Rin repeated in a mockingly affronted tone.

Yukio chuckled. They were silent for a while, lying side by side, both staring upwards.

“I didn’t know that you felt so bad about this. I mean, I always knew that you worry too much, but this… I… I am not your responsibility!” Rin exclaimed.

“[I swore over Father’s grave that I would protect you in his stead](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/15/33). Therefore, you are my responsibility.”

“ _You_  decided that!”

“How does that make it any less valid??”

“Geez, stop that!!”

Rin irritably took his right hand to his dust-covered hair. His idly combing fingers touched his right demonically elongated ear, making him stop and sigh sadly.

“You know, Yukio… all those years… I never knew a thing. I grew up ignorant of everything, happy and unbothered. Before that first lesson at the cram school, I was certain that you were even more out of it than me, I couldn’t… no… I didn’t want to picture it any other way. I wanted you to be safe and [I wanted to keep you out of all this if I could](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/2/12).”

Yukio snorted softly.

“Yeah… Anyways, when I learned that things were just the opposite of what I thought they were, I was so pissed that everyone, Father, you… had lied and hidden something like that from me, that… I didn’t actually try to think about it through your perspective. All those years, while I didn’t worry about a thing, ditched classes and got into stupid fights, you were learning about painful truths and working your ass off to protect my own sorry ass…”

Rin took a big breath in and was painfully reminded of the beam poking out of him. A short access of an ominously bloodied cough followed.

“Hey, Nii-san…!” Yukio worried, patting Rin’s left shoulder in a comforting gesture. Rin politely batted his hand away. He stared his twin brother in the eye with a serious expression.

“Yukio… do you… hate me?”

Yukio hesitated. This time he really couldn’t use the pretext of a mission or work to evade Rin’s inquiry. Nobody seemed to be coming to their rescue anytime soon, either. He couldn’t escape this time.

Yukio looked away from Rin’s face. He felt like he would later remember this and blame his answer on his concussion and blood loss. Yet, regardless of the excuse he might or might not use in the future to justify what he was about to say, there was really only one truthful answer to this question.

“… [Yes](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/29/21).”

He could feel Rin going rigid with hurt by his side. But Rin would’ve been a total fool if he hadn’t, at the very least, entertained the possibility of this being Yukio’s answer. Still, actually hearing it from his brother’s mouth stung far deeper than he’d anticipated.

A few icy seconds of complete silence followed. Not even the little grains of dripping debris made themselves heard.

“But [I hate myself](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/37/34) more.”

“Wha-…?” The shock and outrage in Rin’s voice were almost funny. Yukio’s head throbbed painfully with a vengeance.

“I am… not strong. If I can’t even protect myself, how can I aspire to protect Nii-san?”

Rin’s mouth fell open in utter shock.

“Wha… What are you talking about?? You  _are_  strong! You are my age and you are an excellent exorcist already…! You know lots of things and are super badass with the guns…! I am proud of you every day.” Rin made a small pause and his face closed off comically, like he was about to make a silly humiliating confession that he really didn’t want the world to know about. “I’m even embarrassed to say this but, sometimes, I almost feel like I will never be able to surpass you, because you are so awesome…” He painstakingly, almost imperceptibly, murmured.

Yukio pushed his broken glasses up his nose with one finger and sported a rather cattish grin.

“Well, that’s because you will  _never_  surpass me. [You should keep your jokes in your head](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/37/33), Nii-san.”

“What??” Rin exclaimed with a mockingly offended tone. “You four-eyes, you just watch me! I will definitely surpass you!”

They laughed easily together for a few seconds. But Yukio sobered up quickly. Could he ever truly aim to surpass his big brother?

“I need to become stronger.” He said with resolve. He needed to awaken and control his dormant powers. He would not lose to Rin. Because he could not  _lose Rin_.

Rin sobered up too and stared seriously into Yukio’s face.

“I’m sure you will become stronger. But you don’t  _need_  to. Stop pushing yourself so hard. We are not alone, we’ve got friends. And, together, we are stronger. It’s like you always told us exwires, you don’t have to do everything on your own… you can’t shoulder everything alone. Teamwork, right?” Rin finished with a hopeful smile.

Yukio kept his face expressionless.

“Must be nice to be so simple-minded.” He said nonchalantly.

“Hey! You taught us that!!” Rin blurted out irritably. “And maybe you should be more simple-minded yourself, sometimes…” He whispered as an after-thought.

They both went silent for a long time afterwards. Yukio was starting to feel thirsty. Rin had his eyes closed and shivered from time to time, it seemed like he really had a fever. At one point, Yukio was sure that his brother had been asleep for a while. He was wrong.

“So… I take it that [you haven’t yet acknowledged my flames?](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/37/5)” Rin murmured.

“As long as it’s not [guaranteed that you won’t be dangerous](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/37/20)… you are… [correct](http://www.mangapanda.com/ao-no-exorcist/37/21).” Yukio could almost see the hypocrisy dripping out of his mouth along with those words. It was true that he still felt like he couldn’t acknowledge Rin’s flames, but…  _the fact was_ that he’d been trying to awaken the exact same potentially dangerous power in himself.

“Even though I can understand how useful they can be at times, I think I’ll always see them as a bad thing, considering their source and what they mean.”

“Like a bad means to a good end?” Rin piped in hopefully.

“Something like that… If you use them for a good end, that is.” Yukio conceded hesitantly.

“Hey! I think this is progress!” Rin looked at him with a big smile. Yukio payed him a small, curt smile back.

“See…? Don’t you feel better now that you’ve told me all those things?” Rin asked proudly, with a truly happy expression of his face.

“… Sure.” Yukio replied, with his best fake smile.

Rin’s face fell. He stared silently at his brother’s face for a couple of seconds, then sighed and turned his face upwards to look at where the metal beam and their precarious ceiling connected.

“You know… secrets are no good, Yukio. They only drive people apart and seed misunderstanding. Whatever problem there is, it’s always better to solve it together. So, if there is something bothering you, I hope you will do the right thing and talk about it with someone. It doesn’t have to be me. But just… don’t keep it to yourself, okay?”

Silence stretched between them. Yukio’s head pounded painfully, his right leg and his stomach complained. He was so tired. Maybe Rin was right… Maybe if he just… Maybe he would feel better if he just…

“Nii-san…” He hesitated. Rin turned his head to look at him with an expectant expression. Yukio prepared himself.

“Nii-san, there is someth-…”


	6. Chapter 6

“A bean sprout?!” Rin interrupted abruptly, stupidly staring at the far wall to Yukio’s left.

Now Yukio was beginning to seriously worry about his brother’s condition. He was clearly delirious. Also, Yukio was about to tell him something important…!

Well… Maybe he shouldn’t tell Rin about it after all… at least not now that he was concussed and not thinking like himself. He internally backed away from his ill-considered decision.

“No, Nii-san, there is no food under here.” He said slowly, in what he hoped was a calming tone.

Rin sent him a curt “No kidding, genius!” expression that was rapidly replaced by urgency.

“No, there is a sprout of some kind coming inside from that crack on the wall behind you, look!” Rin said, excitedly gesticulating towards the far wall to Yukio’s left.

Yukio was starting to feel bad for him, so he turned to look towards where Rin was pointing to and his mouth fell open in shock. A green, young, healthy-looking sprout of some kind was indeed coming in from the crack on the wall. The plant kept growing at an astounding speed, leaves and thicker branches sprouting from the initial little plant right in front of their eyes. Yukio assumed a half-seated stance in front of Rin and popped his guns out of his holsters to take aim on the clearly demonic creature.

“No! Yukio!” Rin screeched happily, grabbing at Yukio’s left elbow and momentarily lifting his head from the ground to properly look at the plant. “That’s Nii-chan! It’s Shiemi! It’s Shiemi! They found your Naiad!” He said with a huge, sure grin.

Indeed, the leaves popping out from the original sprout eventually took the form of Shiemi’s little green familiar.

“Nii!” The demon sing-songed happily.

“Nii-chan!!!” Rin echoed ecstatic, tears of joy filling his eyes. “I’m so happy to see you too!!”

Yukio silently returned his guns to his holsters during this silly exchange. He tried to hide how incredibly relieved he actually felt.

“Nii-chan, is Shiemi-san outside? Can you help us?”

Nii-chan gave Yukio his customary “Nii!” reply and made what looked like a positive head sign. A tiny purple araceae-like flower popped out of his right little green arm. Through it, came Shiemi’s voice.

“Yuki-chan? Rin? Are you alright?”

“SHIEMI!!” Rin bellowed, happy tears falling like rivers from his eyes.

Yukio rolled his eyes at him.

“Yes.” Yukio replied calmly.

“Are yer injured?” Came Shura’s voice through the flower.

Yukio opened his mouth to answer, but didn’t really get a chance to do it, because-

“Yer reckless, stupid scaredy-cat, what were yer thinking?? If Shiemi hadn’t gone to the dormitories today to bring Rin his homework, yer would be in there for another 24 hours!”

“Homework?” Yukio whispered and looked reproachfully at his older brother. Rin was suddenly pretending to be incredibly interested in the beam pocking out of his abdomen, clearly avoiding Yukio’s eyes. Yukio sighed defeated and listened silently to the rest of Shura’s exalted reprimand.

“… just stupid! Do yer hear me?? Never pull a senseless stunt like this one again.” Shura finished. A pause. Then a softer. “Are yer still in there?

“Yes.” The brothers replied in a quiet, defeated unison.

“Okay, let’s get yer out of there!”

“Nii-chan, puff out! Push the walls away!” Said Shiemi happily.  

“Niiiiiiiiii!”

Yukio was feeling a bit dizzy from sitting up for so long and also _maybe_  because of Shura’s reprimand. Or maybe it was just the concussion and the mild blood loss. He carefully laid back down by Rin’s side to passively watch the Greenman’s work. Nii-chan had lined the inside of their little cave’s walls with vegetation and now that vegetation was growing, its branches getting thicker, pushing away from them. The sound of the metal and concrete debris moving above and around them was terrifying but no stray rock or metal beam fell through Nii-chan’s thick leafy cover.

Suddenly, Rin wailed in pain. Nii-chan’s movements were pulling at the beam lodged in his abdomen. The Greenman immediately stopped all movement.

“Nii-san…” Yukio whispered, grabbing Rin’s shoulder. Rin had turned awfully pale, he was drenched in sweat and there were tears in his eyes.

“Rin! What’s wrong?” Came Shiemi’s frightened inquiry.

Yukio opened his mouth to reply.

“Nothing’s wrong!” Rin said, fake reassurance perfectly clear on his shaky voice. He gulped. “Go on, Nii-chan, take us out of here!” He said, trying to sound cheerful.  

“O-okay…” Came Shiemi’s hesitant reply. “Go, Nii-chan, take them out of there, please!”

Rin took a deep breath in and, when Nii-chan started pushing at the walls again, Rin grabbed the beam with his hands and pulled. A pained roar escaped his lips as he used his flames to power up his pull. Eventually, the heavy metal object dislodged from the rock under Rin’s back and then, with a terrible wet and crackly, ripping sound, dragged painfully out of Rin’s body. The moment the beam was out of Rin, his flames dimmed to mere wisps of light and he fell limply, head lolling towards Yukio. His eyes rolled towards the back of his head. The sizzling sound of the blueish-grey smoke that marked Rin’s healing process made itself known with a vengeance.

Yukio vigorously squeezed Rin’s shoulder.

“Nii-san! Hey, Nii-san!!”

“…’re… too loud…” Rin muttered slowly. He had his eyes closed now and was deadly pale. Yukio squeezed his shoulder again.

“It’s over, Nii-san. We’ll be out of here in minutes. Hold on.”

“…kay…” Rin opened his eyes and gave Yukio a weak, but sincere smile. “You’re worried about me.” He said provocatively, with what was doubtless meant to be a silly lovey-dovey mocking expression.

Yukio didn’t even hesitate. “Of course I am. You’re my brother.” He said seriously.

Rin sobered up, then smiled again, a happy mix of relief and gratitude in his eyes. Yukio mirrored his twin’s smile and they stared stupidity like that at each other for some seconds. Then, sunlight started coming in from Nii-chan’s progress on top of them.

Rin broke eye contact to stare thoughtfully upwards.

“White light… It’s a less menacing colour than blue, uh Yukio?” He sounded like he was about to lose consciousness again.

Yukio kept staring at Rin before replying. The sunlight was illuminating his twin’s face. He was really pale. And now that there was another light source, Yukio could see how faded his brother’s flames really were. Weak and frail, dimmed like a soon to be extinguished little candle. Yukio gave one last squeeze to Rin’s shoulder, then let go and rolled onto his back to look upwards to where his twin was staring. Sunlight greeted his retinas through the green canopy of Shiemi’s familiar and reflected on the single lens left on his broken glasses.

“Blue is not a menacing colour.” Yukio stated. “It’s just  _our_ colour.” He whispered quietly to a blissfully unconscious Rin that could no longer hear him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even though I REALLY wanted to, I couldn’t make them actually talk about Yukio’s eyes. I ended up feeling that I couldn’t possibly work against the plot device that has been building up in this story for so long (40 chapters, to be exact). To do so kind of felt like an offense to Kazue Katō’s efforts so far, so, in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I just stuck to the little things that bothered me about their relationship throughout the manga… Anyways! I hope you liked it. If you did, please leave me kudos and/or comment. I would really appreciate it. (^_^)


End file.
